Un niveau-seuil

Foreign–Language Syllabus Development: Some Recent Approaches

“…), not always with full understanding. Furthermore, syllabus development has concentrated largely on drawing up inventories rather than progressions, and has also mainly been directed at a 'threshold level', though in the case of Coste et al (1976) this level appears to cover a great deal of ground. Two major problems remaining are the reconciliation where necessary of communicative and grammatical objectives, and the development of methodology to turn the new ideas into interesting and effective teaching materials.…”

“…Another work arising directly out of the Council of Europe project is the French version of the threshold level, ' Un Niveau-seuil' (Coste et al 1976). This differs from the others mentioned in several ways (van Ek, introduction to Coste et al ibid.…”

Pedagogical grammar

“…by Goetz (1976), Hatch (1978b), Besse (19826) and Werlich (1980), but astonishingly enough, far less attention is given to sociolinguistic perspectives; an exception is Janicki (1977). Also to be situated in this general Zeitgeist of communicative language teaching is the setting up of a general threshold level of linguistic competence by the Council of Europe: Van Ek (1975), Coste (1976), Christ (1979. In spite of all these more balanced 'communicative approaches', the trend towards an autonomous communicative approach seems as yet unstoppable: though some warnings were already being voiced by Kleineidam ( , 1982 and Rivenc (1982) or Rivenc-Chiclet (1983), the trend is stronger than ever and seems to unite with the forces of the 'naturalistic' approach.…”

Contemporary Paradigms in Syllabus Design. Part I

“…Perhaps the most widely known -and widely developed -exemplars of the Functional syllabus derive from the modern languages for adults projects of the Council of Europe which was initiated in 1971 (Council of Europe, 1971). A recent valuable collection of extracts of proposals from the major contributors to this work reveals the evolution of a Functional approach (van Ek and Trim, 1984) whilst Coste et al (1976) possibly exemplify the clearest syllabus. Wilkins (1974Wilkins ( , 1976 helpfully relates the Functional syllabus to earlier types, whilst van Ek (1976) applies Functional proposals to syllabus design for young learners on the basis of work originally focused upon adults.…”